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[Moodie (D.C.F.)] : POEMS, by Austral

73 pages, 8vo (220 x 145 mm), original blind-stamped maroon cloth, titled and decorated gilt on upper cover and along the spine, worn at top and bottom of the back, presentation inscription from the author on the front paste-down endpaper

Not in S.A.B.or Mendelssohn. Duncan Campbell Francis Moodie (1838-1891) was the seventh son of the public servant and Natal politician Donald Moodie and his wife Eliza Sophia Pigot. He settled in Australia in 1869 and in 1871 launched a weekly serio-comic paper entitled the Portonian, which ran for eight years. ‘Poems’ by Austral is his first published book. The poetry is undistinguished being imitative in manner and fashionably effusive. A number of the poems deal with South Africa starting with a twelve page narrative poem entitled 'Nature: A Day on the Hills in Natal'. Others include 'An African Reminisicence' and ‘The Natal Gold Diggings: To Greenhorns'. Moodie returned to South Africa in 1883. He died at sea off the island of Teneriffe on 11th February 1891.Moodie seems to have been a Falstaffian character. John Laband describes him in his introduction to the new edition of Moodie's 'History of the Battles' (N.& S. Press, 1988) as 'journalist, poet, historian, man of linguistic and athletic abilities, but also exhibitionist, adventurer and nomad, ... of the most genial and humorous of dispositions, "a very prince of good fellows", as his obituary in the Natal Mercury put it. This dominant characteristic was doubtless to the detriment of his considerable talents, for he was known to be averse to the restrictions of regular employment, and bore the reputation of being something of an idle man-about-town.'The presentation inscription reads, 'To the Editor of the Launceston Examiner from the author (D.C.F. Moodie) with his respectful compliments'.

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